Fr Juan Masiá SJ, professor of Bioethics in the faculty of Theology of the University of Sophia, Japan, has written in the Spanish newspaper El Pais that sometimes it’s irresponsible not to kill disabled babies through abortion, and failing to kill them is also ‘unfair to to the fetus’. Some Catholics in Spain are so thought Fr Juan Masiá SJ’s support of abortion was so outrageous they wondered if its publication in El Pais was a practical joke.

LifeSiteNews reports:

‘A Jesuit priest and professor with a history of support for abortion and contraception has published an article in the Spanish newspaper El Pais arguing that there may be occasions “in which it’s irresponsible not to interrupt a pregnancy, before it’s too late to do it without it being unfair to the fetus.”

“If an abortion is the unjust and irresponsible interruption of a pregnancy,” wrote Fr. Juan Masiá, “not every voluntary interruption of a pregnancy constitutes an abortion in the negative moral sense.”

According to Fr. Masiá, “There are cases in which the decision to interrupt a pregnancy is made precisely to avoid an abortion.” Specifically, he cited the case of “severe malformation,” when the abortion is performed early in pregnancy.

Fr. Masiá is of Spanish origin and is currently professor of Bioethics in the faculty of Theology of the University of Sophia and the University of Bunkyo in Tokyo. In the past, he’s served as Theologian Consultant for the Association of Catholic Doctors of Japan and also as professor in the Pontifical University of Comillas, Madrid, all the while writing against Catholic teaching in Spanish publications.

The article was published on January 1st in the blog section of the Spanish newspaper El País. It came days after the country’s conservative government introduced a new bill that would restrict abortion in the country. The article outraged readers, with some even wondering if the article was a practical joke.

Dr. Enrique Jaureguizar, president of the Spanish association Doctors for Life, responded to Fr. Masiá, sayign: “Any human being is equal in dignity and deserves to be guaranteed the right to life.”

Jaureguizar reminded the priest that “science and the Church coincide in that life starts from conception.”

“Any malformation incompatible with life can never be diagnosed with a 100% (certainty),” declared the doctor. Adding: “no medical doctor can make an attempt on the life of any human being.”

This is not the first time Fr. Masiá has spoken publicly in favor of abortion. In 2012 he published an opinion article, also in El País, under the title “Abortion and newborn life with malformations,” in which he declared: “the abortion of an anencephalic (baby) is not the abortion of a human being.”

He urged readers to “respect the responsible and conscientious decision that the person made after evaluating alternatives, and chose the least harm.”

“If we don’t morally condemn it, we also won’t accept for it to be legally penalized,” he concluded in that article.

On that occasion, Dr. Esteban Rodriguez, president of the Gynecologists Commission for the Right to Life, reminded Masiá of the case of baby Faith, a girl born with anencephaly who lived what her mother called “the best 93 days of my life,” and on whose case LSN reported.

Last year, Masiá wrote a piece in which we said that “conception is not a mechanical moment,” telling readers to make a distinction between “protection life in general… the live matter of a human species (blastocyst before implantation), and an individual human life (the fetus after week eight).”

Also last year, he published an article in plazapublica.com, titled “Go forth always, multiply only when convenient,” in which he promoted the used of contraception.

He has also written for Redes Cristinas, a pseudo-Christian web site among whose members are Catholics for the Right to Decide and several homosexual organizations. In it, he has called Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI “intransigent” in matters regarding contraception.

Protect the Pope comment: Fr Juan Masiá SJ persistent and public advocacy of contraception and abortion brings him under the provision of canon. 1369 ,’ A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.’ Who in the Church will begin the process to impose this just penalty?

There is an infamous ‘theologian’ from Ireland who teaches at Sophia: Joseph O’Leary who either was a priest or still is (he is still listed as a present on the directory of his Irish diocese) and who takes these extreme ultra-liberal positions. He often comments on the Association of Catholic Priests website. All of this is quite incredible. A Benedictine nun promoting abortion and homosexuality; a Jesuit doing the same thing; and ‘Fr’ O’Leary continually attaching the Church. There is a whiff of sulphur in all this.

I’m puzzled about something. We have Jesuit individuals and universities not only ignoring the fundamental tenets of the Faith and thus the Culture of Life, we have them challenging them and acting as acolytes for and supporting the Culture of Death. Why is it then that the Franciscan Fathers of the Immaculate are being utterly smashed by a man appointed by our Holy Father, a Jesuit, when the order from which he hails remains free to continue its assault on the teachings of the Faith they are called to defend. To this day, and I have worked with the FFI, I cannot detect anything they have said or done as individuals or as an order that would warrant the treatment being meted out to them by Fr Volpi, who was appointed by Pope Francis S.J. If I’m right then, it’s okay to defend abortion, but not the Extraordinary Form, it’s okay to promote the destruction of life but not a hermeneutic of continuity through liturgical form. How did we get here? What happened to us that we persecute those who defend tradition and orthodoxy but give a free pass to those that defend the Culture of death. Francis S.J., obviously reads the papers as he telephones those who question him in the press to thank them for doing so. How then is it that he has not yet become aware of the issues or individuals to which I refer? I hope he phones Fr Volpi and Fr Masia S.J. soon to sort this all out. Like I said at the beginning, I am puzzled. Maybe it’s just me?

And a good way to support the FFI is to attend the “Days with Mary”. There is one due at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday 25th January. If that is too distant from you then have a look at their website:

They hold them every Saturday at different venues throughout the UK so there will be one near you in the future for those in the UK.

As for the FFI pray and be patient. They will come out of this stronger than ever. After all the Franciscans had very similar problems immediately after the death of St Francis. As a lawyer I will be particularly interested in the outcome of his accusations of embezzlement. He may have got his knickers in a twist over that one!

As for Fr Masia let us give Pope Francis the benefit of a period of time before he disciplines him.

And yet the Franciscans of the Immaculate are being persecuted by the Church. And the Jesuits continue to spread error and cause scandal. There is a God and those in charge WILL have to render an account. Even popes stand alone before their maker at the end. No cameras, no microphones, no interviews, no hugging deformed people, none of this will rationalize doing nothing to stop evil.

Is this priest for real? Last week a priest was dismissed from the Jesuits for disobeying his superiors, how can this man remain whilst holding such an opinion. The Jesuits perhaps need to get their priorities right!

As the recent news has shewn, I would be ineligible to be considered as a foster-father or an adoptive parent because I think homosexuality is disordered. Unless one supports the entire Gay Rights rubbish, one is not considered fit to have control over children.

How vile that you regard infanticide as a method of birth control. Murdering babies because they are inconvenient has to be the worst form of child abuse – and you support it. Ugh. Nevertheless, as long as you support the Gay Equality twaddle, you’d probably be allowed to adopt.